So, what is Brewmaster tanking like?

For anyone who has a high level Brewmaster, what is your impression of Monk tanking so far? On paper, it sounds similar to Blood DK tanking to me, but it's hard to tell without trying it. Does anything about it stand out compared to the other tanking classes? Do you think you'd want to raid as a Brewmaster?

They are the most active tank in the active mitigation model. Without using your defensive abilities you are closer to a rogue than any of the other tanks.

Exactly what he said. I have had healers tell me that the gap between good/bad monks is astounding. I barely take damage in heroics - as an example, my party got locked out of a boss (lol get inside the doors). I kept myself alive and the warlock that was with me (also drain life spam), and we took the boss from 100-0 without any real "heal". Chi Wave, expel Harm, fortifying brews, guard, etc.

It is more fun than any tanking class I have played, but it really does require you to be skilled.

It's a lot of fun and very engaging. They're well designed and you can spend a lot of time mastering them - I think they have a higher skill cap than the other tanks that I've played. You've got to manage your stagger and cooldowns correctly, and being stunned will really hurt you. Since they're brand new, I think they're the closest tank to what Blizzard wants tanks to be.

One of the most active tanks, lots of movement and use of short term defensive cooldowns and self-heals.

The rough part is that most fights tend to be turret fights for a tank outside of the odd target swap, tanks generally don't have to move that much in the raid environment when downing bosses.

They'll start our rather weak - like bears we're a very high avoidance tank and stagger is a pretty poor type of mitigation. (I've died after fights where I was low on health and the healer didn't throw some HP on me.) Eventually though around level 38 I think it is you'll get access to much more of your toolkit with the Brewmaster Training skill, this gives you the parry you'll be missing from your gear, makes tiger palm a usable spell again and just makes life easier.

Also I think we have the best AoE pull tool in the game with throwing barrels of brew around, makes a lot of 5-mans very easy to get through if your heals and dps are on the ball, just gather them up, guard, breath of fire and mow 'em down.

I've found them to be the most fun I've had in a long while, and by far the most fun I've had tanking overall. You really need to know what you're doing to tank properly, and as said before, the disparity between bad and good monk tanks is rather insane. I got full HC gear, and I can pull 2-4 packs or so, and have no problem surviving except for the initial burst, since once you get your Shuffle and Guard up, you can really tank a lot of damage, as well as the Healing Spheres that spawn keeps you up nicely, and tons of them spawn when you AOE with Spinning Crane Kick (like 10-20 spawns in a couple seconds of kicking).

It also feels really nice to aim for DPS stats (hit and expertise caps, expertise being hardcap) which makes you feel more active, rather than just stand around and dodging things. Roll also makes for dodging targeted abilities and kiting really easy, not to mention Transcendence, which is probably rather underused by a lot of monks, but it's so good. A couple tricks using it is on: first boss in Jade Temple, when the boss shoots a water spout much like the Lurker, you can drop your spirit, keep running, and when the water passes your spirit you can swap places; last boss in Niuzao, when you have to get to the other side and interrupt him - drop your spirit on one side, and when he flies over, just swap places, roll once and then interrupt the boss (interrupts all his further attempts at blowing wind).

Don't know where I'm going with this other than it's a really fun class, but you need to know what you're doing to do it properly.

I'm almost 90, I've tanked from beginning to end. I used to play prot pally. I have to say, Monks at this point are far superior. I've had healers tell me that they feel cheated because they have little to heal through general mechanics. I'm gearing towards main tank for my 25man guild and the other 24 seem pretty siked that we have a monk tank (over our old warrior/guardian).

The rotation is pretty simple.
AoEing is actually fun to do because we have a large selection of AoE.
Mitigation is easy, absorbing a healthy portion of damage, and staggering alot of it away.
A good use of CD's to rotate for big boss attacks.
A number of self heals that tick rather nicely.

I genuinely feel happy playing it over my paladin, I'd personally recommend it.

Oh my god, Brewmaster tanking is A LOT of fun. As said above though, the difference between a good and bad Monk is utterly ridiculous. Yesterday I was tanking a heroic and my healer (guild run) said on vent that I was pretty difficult to heal. I focused a bit more on using my defensive stuff (blackout kick, elusive brew, guard) and the difference was very noticeable. Made a vast improvement.

Basically, when AoEing it's very easy to ignore your defensive abilities, because they're almost all single target things. Don't do this! You need to be keeping Shuffle/Elusive Brew up at all times. That said, I haven't needed to get 3 stacks of Power Guard for my Guard; a regular strength Guard seems to be fine in AoE situations.

On the plus side, Brewmaster AoE DPS is utterly insane at the moment. I fully expect a nerf to this, and soon.

But yeah... Expect A LOT of hate from people who only experience bad Monks in LFD/LFR. The gap between good and bad is just astounding.

monk tanking is proly the hardest thing in the game to learn lol... it is a very complex spec.. id compare it to kitty dpsing hitting 12 or 15 different button combos.. idk really... i guess it is rewarding but it is really hard to figure out and nail.

I'm unfortunately experiencing a lot of the same thing I saw when I started tanking on my DK at the beginning of Wrath. It's a strong, strong class with a very unique play style, but unfortunately due to that many people are leery. It's often that I'll load into an instance just to see the healer say 'ugh a monk' and leave the group. However, the healers who do stay for the instance are typically pretty impressed - Guard is just so OP in 5-mans that healers can pretty much /afk.

I'm unfortunately experiencing a lot of the same thing I saw when I started tanking on my DK at the beginning of Wrath. It's a strong, strong class with a very unique play style, but unfortunately due to that many people are leery. It'ssu often that I'll load into an instance just to see the healer say 'ugh a monk' and leave the group. However, the healers who do stay for the instance are typically pretty impressed - Guard is just so OP in 5-mans that healers can pretty much /afk.

I have to say i agree with both you and with the disgusted healer. As a primary Mistweaver, i can say right now that more Brewmaster monks need to learn to use Guard. Guard, Blackout kick, Zen Sphere/Chi Wave and Purifying Brew are all more important uses for spending chi than spamming Breath of Fire.

On the plus side, Brewmaster AoE DPS is utterly insane at the moment. I fully expect a nerf to this, and soon.

I was healing randoms yesterday and got a Monk tank. He was pulling 111k dps on trash packs. A little less when there were < three mobs.

---------- Post added 2012-10-01 at 10:39 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Monteverdi

I'm unfortunately experiencing a lot of the same thing I saw when I started tanking on my DK at the beginning of Wrath. It's a strong, strong class with a very unique play style, but unfortunately due to that many people are leery. It's often that I'll load into an instance just to see the healer say 'ugh a monk' and leave the group. However, the healers who do stay for the instance are typically pretty impressed - Guard is just so OP in 5-mans that healers can pretty much /afk.

I've only healed the one monk tank so far, but outside of one or two spiky moments, I didn't notice that it was any easier or any more difficult than any other tank so far. The difference is I don't know what to expect yet. Paladin tank damage has been pretty smooth for me so far, and Death Knight tank damage is usually fine unless he's not getting big shields, then I have to pay attention a bit, but I know he'll help me out on healing with death strike and rune tap (blood tap? I always mix the two up). Since I'm not sure yet what the tool kit of the monk tank is yet, I really don't know how to approach healing them (aka how much do I have to pay attention)

Humans are the only species on the planet smart enough to be this stupid.

I have to say i agree with both you and with the disgusted healer. As a primary Mistweaver, i can say right now that more Brewmaster monks need to learn to use Guard. Guard, Blackout kick, Zen Sphere/Chi Wave and Purifying Brew are all more important uses for spending chi than spamming Breath of Fire.

I've been leveling my brewmaster tank with my friend mistweaver healing, we've done every dungeon so far together, and been 1+2 on dps every time so far with absolutely no issues with healing/mitigation. Mostly we just round everything up and aoe it, and even on bosses him autohitting seems to do enough healing on the group.

I'm loving it, but I'm afraid of nerfs inc soon. It feels too good.

Who is Chris Metzen? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Zarhym tell it, anybody could have worked for Metzen. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that... poof! He's gone.

AoE damage is higher than it needs to be for a tank. I think it ought to be nerfed, and single target abilities might need a little tweak upwards to compensate.

The spec is always chi-starved, there is never enough chi to use all the chi-spending abilities. maybe one of our 2-chi abilities (guard maybe?) should cost one less chi, or Expel Harm should always grant 2 chi instead of one, or jab should cost a little less energy.

The spec is helpless when stunned, at least mistweavers get a free damage immunity for a couple seconds when stunned (Dematerialize, which is awesome), and though perhaps it is not quite appropriate for a tank, maybe a second wind like effect would be nice to cover out asses when stunned.

The spec is always chi-starved, there is never enough chi to use all the chi-spending abilities. maybe one of our 2-chi abilities (guard maybe?) should cost one less chi, or Expel Harm should always grant 2 chi instead of one, or jab should cost a little less energy.

To be quite frank, I haven't been having much, if any, problems with chi as a brewmaster, and I am doing fine in terms of keeping myself up. Are you using tiger palm a solid amount? Because that helps. You shouldn't just be sitting around waiting for chi, nor would I want the spec to be one where we're constantly using chi and the like. It feels fine as is to me.

I use TP, that's not the issue, i know to press TP when i can't press any other button, it's that I cannot get Shuffle up 100% of the time and still use Guard on cooldown and Zen Sphere every 16 seconds. I understand one cannot have one's AM tools all up 100% but that's the moon your supposed to shoot for right?

For example, If want to use a TPx3 Guard by the time i use TP>Jab>TP>Jab>TP my Shuffle has fallen off and i need to used Black out kick again, so when will i ever get to use Guard? or If i use Guard, how long of a gap between shuffles is acceptable?

TP isn't your only chi granting ability. Keg smash gives 2 for I believe the same price of energy as jab. After the first Guard you only need to use TP 3 times in 30 seconds to get it back to 3 stacks before Guard is ready again, you don't really need to spam TP every other ability. Just whenever you have energy/chi ability downtimes.

I'm not sure Zen Sphere is powerful enough to build into your priority list either, it's a fairly weak heal, I believe a single Blackout Kick heals you more...

We're talking about Brewmasters, BOK does not heal a BM, it grants parry and increases stagger. If you meant that Expel Harm heals more, well EH and ZS are not exclusive: EX is a reactive heal that builds Chi and ZS is a preemptive HoT that spends Chi. I find zen Sphere to be a good stabilizer (and it is increased 30% by guard), and it accounts for a not insignifant amount of self healing. And also TP neither grants nor costs Chi for BM, it's merely a Global Cooldown filler, to be used when ever you can't do anything else (because of no energy and no chi) so i am essentially always pressing something, i guess as haste increases throughout this expansion will be pressing TP less and Jab More.

I find that on a brand new pull with all short CDs ready, I use Keg Smash > Guard > Jab(Power Strikes) > Zen Sphere as my set up. If i am doing AoE i follow up with SCKx2>Breath of Fire>Leg Sweep, and for Single target its Jabx2>Blackout Kick. (I am only level 63 so i don't have RJW, but i expect that will replace ZS on my AoE opening rotation).

Basically i am counting on Guard and Zen Sphere to last me at least long enough to get me through my first Blackout Kick or Leg Sweep.